Surrogate Motherhood

When we think of a family, we typically picture one created the “old-fashioned way.” With today’s advances in medicine and biotechnology, it is not the only available route. When couples face challenges conceiving a child or carrying one to term, many turn to reproductive endocrinologists. Infertility treatment raises a multitude of ethical questions and challenges, from treatment to allowing the intended mother’s own body to carry the baby, to the use of a surrogate to carry the longed-for child.

Surrogate motherhood allows another woman to become pregnant in place of the intended mother, who cannot or will not bear her own children. An embryo conceived through in-vitro fertilization is planted in the surrogate mother’s uterus. And while our hearts hurt for those unable to conceive, there are many considerations before we choose to become involved as assistants to building another’s family.

Surrogacy is far from just an emotional decision. While the cost for children through surrogacy can be staggering, gestational carriers see only a fraction of this money, with doctors, embryologists, lawyers and more each taking their share. Sometimes a sister or other relative will choose to carry the baby for an infertile couple, but the surrogate usually has no prior connection to the child’s parents.

Before entering into this kind of an arrangement, people must count the cost. The fertility industry can take advantage of poor women and exploit them for its own ends. Pregnancy always presents health risks. Beyond these are the emotional and psychological toll of relinquishing a life you chose to grow and nourish inside your very being. Because of this, surrogate motherhood cannot be entered into for mere monetary compensation. There will always be an emotional toll, wondering how that part of you is being raised, the feeling of responsibility for a life whom you brought into the world. These are all hard to shake.

Other questions arise as well. How many embryos will be transferred, and what will happen if more than one implants and grows? In the surrogate arrangement, it is the parents who will choose if “selection reduction” is practiced, a procedure where one or more embryos are destroyed to allow one a better opportunity at survival and growth. A decision must be made about what will happen if the unborn or newborn child is deemed to be handicapped. Such unplanned scenarios may lead to abortion or finding other means to deal with an unwanted baby after birth, options which create an even greater moral dilemma from a biblical perspective.

Each pregnancy poses health risks for the mother, especially when several embryos are implanted simultaneously. These risks include complications during pregnancy and birth, delivery by caesarean section, and, in the worst-case scenario, the loss of the mother’s life. The birth mother may also encounter emotional and psychological problems.

The ideal in the Bible is to respect life in all its forms. God values life. His very image is etched on our being. We are called to value it whether that life is a perfect representation of the ideal, or carries marks of the world we live in. It is this understanding of the value of life itself that must direct the inner, prayerful conversation about becoming involved in reproductive endocrinology, whether to build a family through adoption, or to accept a child-free life.

For a deeper understanding of the issue involved, we suggest people go to the following link: https://www.adventist.org/en/information/official-statements/documents/article/go/-/considerations-on-assisted-human-reproduction/